


Quite a Handful

by Ewok_Poet



Series: Forever Away from Home [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewok_Poet/pseuds/Ewok_Poet
Summary: Taide Lambrin, young custodian of the Archaeological Museum of Anaslinea-Hoc has just met the kind of a girl he could fall in love with. So did Maris Inesedam, an archaeology student and a part-time singer from Saccorata. But is any of them capable of showing affection?





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Taide Lambrin is an "[ascended extra](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AscendedExtra)" from the Vagran arc of my 2016 DDC, [Letters Never Sent](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/ddc-2016-letters-never-sent-ocs-rots-introspection-thriller-romance-updated-february-16th.50037130/), who is also the protagonist of  
> @[Findswoman](members/findswoman.1382244/)'s excellent story, [The Jewels of...WHAT?!](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-jewels-of-what-fic-gift-for-ewok-poet-borrowed-oc-%E2%80%94complete-as-of-1-31.50043531/). Finds also came up with his curriculum.  
>   
> Maris Inesedam, later known as Maris Inesedam-Vorr first appeared in [The Black Star](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-black-star-ocs-tendra-3-5-aby-thriller-black-comedy-part-i-done-e-book-available-march-30.50027415/) as Doria Vorr's mother, is mentioned in Letters Never Sent and appears throughout my 2017 DDC - [Doaba Ke'demii - The Diary of a Young Comradette](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/ddc-2017-doaba-kedemii-the-diary-of-a-young-comradette-ocs-anh-tesb.50043538/). She will also be present from chapter 7 of "The Light" portion of [Midday Darkness // The Light is Me, I Am the Light](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/midday-darkness-the-light-is-me-i-am-the-light-bio-autobio-forewords-posted-february-18th.50038900).  
>   
> Saride of Nar'cees receives mentions in all the above stories, but this is his first proper appearance.

The Festival of Wine and Dance had been the highlight of every year in Anaslinea-Hoc, ever since the town’s founding and the first proper temple erected behind the statue of Karmenee Caraway, a youngling who had tragically lost her life to swamp fever and had become the everlasting symbol of the town’s series of unfortunate events. The townspeople had long since decided to dedicate their lives to celebrate being alive, despite all of their previous hardships.  
  
Not even the recent changes on the Galactic scale could stop the event. For eight days, the small coastal area in the middle of Kaz’aan Bay, its seaside horizons speckled by mountains and its outskirts scattered with swampgrape groves, was alive with the sound of music and dance, and the scent of the most intoxicating of the region’s wines. The eve of the festival had been particularly beautiful – even Vagran’s young Prime Minister, Sorimana Aedemii, attended the ceremony of spilling the wine into the sea and following its trail all the way to the rocky area where the bottom of the mythical Chiro Mountain, reputed home of the Goddess, was polished by the waves.  
  
Dancing troupes from all over the Corellian Sectors took part in the festival. Every day, on a small stage under the tanpalso trees, right next to the ruins of the ancient city of Kariyela and its mysterious Church of the Blind, younglings and young adults were presenting their cultural heritage to the small, but enthusiastic audience. The nearby spaceport had quite a busy day – the shuttles would arrive one after another, the guides had to be assigned to the groups from this or that system and then the groups had to be taken to the town to wherever they were to be accommodated.  
  
The Sacorrian shuttle was, as usual, the first to arrive. The insular and disciplined residents of Vagran’s neighbouring star system thought it “progressive” to show up before everybody else, or so their guide understood. Groyo Stager, otherwise a cadet at the Skystrike Academy, was picked from a handful of residents to take the seventeen beings to Hotel Iasonné.  
  
He had been told that the leader of the group was a Human woman, a choreographer. He was surprised to be greeted by a Selonian male in a violet velvet suit.  
  
“There is no accounting for taste…” Groyo thought to himself.  
  
“Progressive greetings to you, comrade, I am Saride of Nar’cees and these fifteen younglings and this aspiring young singer were picked to represent our system at your event among tough competition.”  
  
“Greetings to you too, Brother Saride.” Groyo responded in traditional Vagranite manner, much to Saride’s disgust. “I see that you’re not Sister Lyneina Lylek, though?”  
  
“Comradette Lylek had prior commitments with the folkdance entrance exams at SUPAS and I offered to progressively fill in for her.”  
  
Groyo grinned. He was not sure how one could “progressively” fill in, but nevertheless he changed the name on the datapad he carried with him and had the group board the speeder-van to Anaslinea-Hoc. The younglings and the “aspiring young singer” did not utter a single word during their trip.  
  
And what did SUPAS stand for, anyway?  
  


…

  
Once at Hotel Iasonné, Comrade Saride, former art teacher in a basic school in Curheg and now a professor at SUPAS, looked at his group of obedient young talents and instructed them to be quiet. This was by no means necessary, but the sixteen beings immediately put their hands on their hips.  
  
"Just had a comm call. Our plans will have to change. I have some personal business at the University of Abatore, so younglings, you will be under Comradette Inesedam's care for two days. She will conduct your practice sessions and make sure that you’re in bed by twenty-one hundred."  
  
"Comrade Saride! You are not supposed to leave us unattended, it is not progressive!" One of the Drall dancers was quick to protest, his short stubby arms crossed.  
  
"I decide what is progressive and what is not." Saride said, with a smirk. "I have some important art-related issues to handle there." He paused and then raised his eyebrows. "Their Majesties sent me."  
  
The dancing troupe was in the awe. There were “wows,” “by Saccors” and unidentified expressions of sheer respect. The singer accompanying the band, who was in her early twenties, did not seem fazed at all. She didn't know how she had gotten there, anyway. She sang on a practical task and somebody heard her, then told somebody else, and that somebody else knew a bigwig in the Ministry of Education. Three days later, the petite redhead by the name of Maris Inesedam was asked to accompany a youngling dance troupe on a tour of youth festivals across the Western Corellian Sector. And she was branded “an aspiring young singer”.  
  
Nevertheless, she saw the trip as a good opportunity to take a vacation from her secretive and straight-cut mother Yola, and – no matter how much she was unwilling to admit it – her SoSacc vagabond boyfriend, Elesandre. He had been a bit too unprogressive recently, jealous at every single shadow heading towards hers, to the point where he threw a grey bear sticky net on a GR series droid accompanying his girlfriend for an excavation on Noleria. He was smart, a talented mechanic, but his studies at Saccorata Tech were marked by arguments with professors and lect-aide droids, practical jokes directed at fellow students and many other un-Sacorrian things that Maris was actually surprised he could get away with.  
  
And while Saride’s sudden change of plans certainly meant that she was in for some late-night scary tales in order to get the seven-to-ten year olds in the group to sleep, this also meant that she could explore the ancient ruins as much as she pleased. For an archaeology student, towns like this were like a goldmine. Not to mention that she could freely meet her aunt Larax, who had defected to Vagran nearly a decade earlier, after a forbidden affair with her much-older Selonian mentor.  
  


…

  
The next morning, trying to get the five Drall, five Selonian and five Human younglings to behave after a surprisingly quiet night and a hearty, carbohydrate-loaded breakfast, Maris came to the gate of the largest of the ten excavations scattered around town. She pressed the buzzer.  
  
“There’s a booth over there!” One of the Human girls pointed to a makeshift wooden table. “But where is the booth cheeka?”  
  
“Yes, where is she? This is not progressive!” A Selonian boy was nervously tapping his feet.  
  
And then somebody appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
“Hello! I am your booth cheeka!” The male voice was clearly addressing Maris.  
  
“You’re my…what?” Maris was clearly horrified. She looked up and saw a tall man, of slightly darker complexion than her pale white, with short and neatly-trimmed black hair and brown eyes. He couldn’t have been that much older than her. And he was…blushing!  
  
“Oh…ummm…I just realised how that sounded. I should stop using slang in other languages, it confuses me most of the time. It was supposed to be wordplay. I…ummm…I work here. I can show you around. My name is Church of the Blind and this is the most controversial discovery on Vagran – Taide Lambrin.”  
  
Maris gave him a blank stare.  
  
The perky Drall boy from earlier raised his hand. “You mean the other way around, comrade?”  
  
“Why, y-yes, clumsy me! Again. My name is Taide Lambrin and I’m the custodian assigned to this archaeological site. Group tours are three Republiar…Imperic credits per…whatever, this one is on me!” He stopped for a moment, to take a deep breath. “And why did you ask permission to speak? You don’t need to do that here on Vagran, young brother…”  
  
“Young comrade Ordinus, comrade-brother Lambrin!” The Dralling knelt on one knee. Taide was flaggerbasted. He timidly looked Maris’ way, only now noticing that her eyes were greenish-blue.  
  
She shrugged. “Sometimes they do these things to impress offworlders. They don’t understand that you are not impressed.”  
  
“But, Sister Inesedam, I _am_ impressed! Our star systems are so close, to the point where people once thought that we were going to steal Vo away from you! Especially given the myths surrounding Kolki.”  
  
“You’re big on mythology, aren’t you?” Maris raised an eyebrow.  
  
Taide looked down. “Why yes…wait, that’s bragging. I should be humble.”  
  
She smiled. “By all means, do go on.”  
  
“I am not an archaeologist, at least not yet. Taking the course here in Abatore. My major was sentient studies. I just came back from the University of Chandrila Residencies in Sentient Studies. I had authored a paper on the Iassoné Festival.”  
  
“That sounds exciting!” Ordinus reacted before Maris could think of a coherent sentence. “Did it, by any chance, include the story of how Iasonné founded the city of Sublata, where our programme’s choreographer, Lyneina Lylek, was from?”  
  
Taide leaned over to the youngling. “Yes! It took me quite a while to get a hold of a reliable, verified source from your Homeworld, but I was aided by my mentor, Mammon Hoole!”  
  
“You worked with Doctor Hoole? That is so impressive!”  
  
Taide was blushing again. “Yes. I can call him a friend. He helped me a lot. He was supposed to come for this year’s Festival of Wine and Dance, but unfortunately, he had some prior commitments.” He paused again. “Either way…younglings…young…err…comrades and comradettes, would you like to see the Church of the Blind? Or the exhibit?”  
  
“Is it creepy?” One of the Selonian girls asked. “We like creepy! Comradette Inesedam tells the best bedtime stories, let’s see if your myths can top that!”  
  
Taide flashed an awkward grin, nodded and led the group inside. The small building in the middle of the site was the Archaeological Museum of Anaslinea-Hoc. The light went on the moment they walked in, illuminating the repulsorlift model of the Iasonné System.  
  
“M-m-many years ago…” Taide began. “Colonists from Corellia arrived on Vagran. As you probably know from your Corellian Sector History classes, the first wave of settlers experienced a nasty surprise – the planet was rich in resources, but many plants were lethal to Humans. It took some drastic measurements to make Vagran habitable. Fast forward to some eight decades ago – this very place became home to a couple of thousand refugees from the destroyed town of Anaslinea, on the Outlier System of Jumus. Unfortunately, this was the time a particularly dangerous insect species was discovered in this area, one that could break through the ultrasound barriers. A third of town’s population succumbed to the swamp fever; among them was our first Mayor’s daughter, little Karmenee Caraway – you have seen the statue. We were granted a second graveyard, despite the Vagranite customs prohibiting primitive forms of burial. The ground had to be isolated and lined. While digging, the droids came across remains of a fascinating temple! The first analysis showed that this location had been settled long before the Tho-Yor Arrival, predating the first generation ships that departed Galaxy-wide from Coruscant.”  
  
Taide made a pause, expecting questions. The younglings were eagerly waiting for more and Maris gestured to him to go on.  
  
“It soon became clear that the graveyard had to be dug in a different place. But the more our founding brothers and sisters dug, the more ruins they uncovered. Eventually, they were determined to have belonged to two separate cities – Taliore, on top of the hill, and Kariyela, on the seashore. Further excavations revealed some mummified corpses. A small number of them wore petrified bands over their eyes. The great Lazari Polverò nicknamed them “the Church of the Blind”, as all of them were found at the same location – the remains of a temple.”  
  
“And what did you determine?” Ordinus went again.  
  
“Good question, young brother comrade! My research led me to the conclusion that the significant number of blind individuals was a result of a genetic abnormality, even. Inbreeding. The Kariyelans considered these beings to be gifted, yet precious. They were not allowed outside of their temple. Given their extremely developed senses other than sight, the townspeople were convinced that their abilities would vanish if they were exposed to sunlight, rain and occasional snow….even sea salt! But what is far more interesting is…”  
  
Taide walked up to a display window, showing alabaster-like hands holding brooches of various bright colours.  
  
“…that they were all found with these brooches in their hands! At this point, I believe that their brooches were Force tools and my further research….”  
  
He was interrupted by a couple of younglings, screaming.  
  
“What is wrong, comrad…”  
  
Maris got up from her seat and walked up to Taide. “Are those their actual hands? I think the younglings are scared!”  
  
“No, those hands were petrified at other locations and we found them removed from the equally petrified bodies. Aren’t they nice? I thought that they would make a great display!”  
  
This time, nearly half of the younglings from the group screamed. Taide was not aware that he had raised his voice, fascinated by his own discovery.  
  
“Comradette Inesedam?” One Drall girl raised her hand. “I need to use the ‘fresher.”  
  
Ordinus joined in. “And we want to go somewhere else, please. The fun fair?”  
  
The younglings were collectively heading out. Taide stood there, looking confused, but before she followed the group back into the light of the large park dotted with ruins, Maris came up to him and said, “It’s not your fault. Besides, I will come here on my own in the afternoon, I want to hear the rest of the story. As an archaeology student, I am intrigued!”  
  
The words were racing through Taide’s head. Still, he managed to utter something along the lines of “iamherefromseventeenthirtytillafterthelunchbreak”. Once the last youngling was out, the custodian used the staff door to get out of the Museum and cut through some narrow backstreets. He wound up in front of a modest restaurant, with “Sladok’s Place” written above its door. He passed among the crowded tables outside and climbed the stairs to a small bar and a spacious, steamy kitchen.  
  
“Slad!”  
  
“Oh, it’s you, Taide…” the smiling chef greeted him. “What is…”  
  
“You have to help me! I need a crash course! Please!”


	2. II

By the time Maris arrived at the Museum again, Taide had drunk twelve cafs at Sladok’s Place. The restaurant’s owner and Veropapa Mak, the teenage waitress, thought this was a good idea. Unfortunately, he only became more nervous.  
  
Slad shook his head. “Perhaps I should have cooked you lunch instead. Then again, that could’ve presented us with a whole new problem.”  
  
“You already gave him lunch once,” Vero giggled. “And whoever told you that caf calms people down must have been one of those beings with hyperspace processing disorder. Everybody else gets agitated from it. This is worse than that time you gave those Zelosians a carbosyrup-glazed tart!”  
  
“Don’t remind me of that, please!” Sladok grabbed his head. “They came to the Church of the Blind excavation and one attempted to court a tamplano tree!” He paused. “That was while you were on Chandrila, Taide.”  
  
Taide did not want to know this by any means. He took a deep breath and looked at the lazy summer street outside. The former main street passing through the town centre seemed quiet in comparison to his plethora of inner voices, all of them screaming in panic. Sure, Sladok had just given him a crash course in how to talk to women, but his course did not mention women from societies so different from that of their adopted planet. The portly restaurant owner and the coquettish teenage girl didn’t know anything about academic subjects, either. And they could not fill him in on anything related to music and dance that was relevant to sentientology and archaeology. What was he supposed to talk about? The weather? Sports? Clothing? Food?  
  
At this point, doctoral candidate Taide Lambrin was sure that the talking convor on the Parlyooma HoloNet show was right: love is boring!  
  
“So, let me get this straight – I should talk about things that are not just work?” he asked Sladok and Vero again.  
  
“Yeah.” Vero clapped her hands. “Talk about her feelings and…you know, stuff. Things like that.” She leaned over the table. “Show an interest in her homeworld. Say that we don’t know anything about them…” She paused. “…which is, more or less, what it’s like, really.”  
  
Slad nodded to that. “All I know about Sacorria is that everybody is a comrade or comradette there, that they’re a multispecies society and that they’re ruled by three beings whom nobody has ever seen.” He stopped for a moment. “Are those even real? The Sacorrian Triad folk?”  
  
Taide thought about it. As a sentientologist and archaeologist in the making, he knew a lot about various cultures’ sensibilities. Perhaps Maris held this Sacorrian Triad close to her heart. Perhaps they  
  
“Brother Taide, she’s coming! And wow, she’s pretty, but those are some real small stor…” Vero stopped upon seeing an expression of disapproval on Slad’s face. Taide didn’t hear her, anyway. He was choking on his thirteenth caf.  
  
Luckily, Vero managed to pat him on the back before Maris arrived. She approached the trio in the restaurant’s summer garden, almost marching, or so it looked to Vero.  
  
“Prog, Comrade Lambrin,” she said.  
  
“Hello, Sist…Comr…Mistress Inesedam. These are my friends, Sladok Kusetzi and Veropapa Mak.”  
  
“Yeah, Slad runs this place and I’m helping him out,” Vero interjected. “We offer daily fresh fish and seafood, as well as bantha and nerf delicacies. Our grill is superb.” Certain that she had already got Maris’ attention, she winked at Taide.  
  
“Yes! Vero is right! Sistress Maris, I was wondering if you would join me for danger tomorrow?” he managed to utter, his quickly spoken words escaping his dry, caf-sanitised mouth, even though he could swear that he didn’t really want them to.  
  
“A dinner?” Maris’ face lit up. “Yes, of course. I like trying out new things – that’s a progressive way to live. Between the cantina food at SUPAS and my mother’s overly greasy meals at home – just don’t get me started on her topato and pomato thing which contains more bovid lard than anything else.” She paused to roll her eyes. “I don’t eat a lot, but I like good food! And I have tomorrow off because my aunt lives in Abatore and she’s coming to see me. Using the opportunity while Comrade Saride is away…”  
  
“Who is that?” Vero asked again before Taide could even focus on anything more than the mere sensation of having had a woman accept his dinner invitation.  
  
Maris looked around and then, her voice hushed, started explaining.  
  
“It’s a long and complicated story, but he’s the SUPAS professor in charge for us. He is also mentoring Roula of Pelayn, the candidate for the new Dean. He doesn’t know anything about music; he’s a painter and a former basic school teacher. But yeah, Lyneina Lylek couldn’t come, and she was the one who composed the music for our act and one of her ancestors composed our planetary anthem, which I am supposed to sing.” She took a deep breath. “He must not see my aunt, who deflected to Vagran with her husband some years ago. You see, her husband is a Selonian…my uncle Denaro is Selonian.”  
  
“That is fascinating!” Taide said, absentmindedly.  
  
“Really? I thought it was not allowed?”  
  
Vero winked again. “Everything is allowed in love…right, Taide?”  
  
“What what what what?” the academic nearly fell of his chair. “I mean…why is it not allowed on Sacorria, Sistress…Mistr…Comradette Maris?”  
  
“It’s a part of our Book of Law.” Maris seemed to be intrigued by everybody else’s confusion. “I would show you, but we are not supposed to give copies of it away to anybody. And while I am allowed to visit Aunt Larax myself, I don’t want to get in trouble with Comrade Saride.” She shook her head. “Anyway, Comrade Lambrin…”  
  
“Call him Taide, please.” Sladok hugged his friend, who managed an awkward grin.  
  
“…Taide…can you show me the rest of the excavation? I am really intrigued to know more about Taliore, Kariyela and the Church of the Blind!”  
  
“Yes. I mean, sure. Let’s go!” Taide’s face lit up.  
  
“By the way, what the kriff is SUPAS and why does it have a Dean?” Vero asked, but Taide and Maris had already crossed the street separating the restaurant from the archaeological site.  
  
“Vero!” Sladok grabbed his head again. “You promised not to use bad words at work!”  
  
The teenager shrugged. “I thought that all this thing with Taide had been one loooong lunch break.”  
  


…

  
Taide was confused. He couldn’t possibly tell his parents that somehow, in the heat of the moment, he had asked an actual woman – not a very convincing-looking droid like that one time for Anaslinea Rememberance Day – to accompany him to dinner. He didn’t know how to explain to them that this girl was perfect – she liked the same things he did, she was sort of awkward in her own way, she did not seem to care much for the outside world as it was and she was pretty – he blushed and giggled at the sole thought of her reddish hair and green eyes.  
  
Not only that, but she had really nice hands. He was thinking of asking her to do a cast of her hand for the display of some of the newly-found jewellery that he could swear was Force-sensitive. “Like,” as Vero would say, nobody would know that it’s not an actual petrified hand. And it would be a honour to a fellow academic, right?  
  
Then he sighed. He remembered what Sladok had told him somewhere between the sixth and seventh caf before the unforgettable afternoon at the excavation: “Just…whatever you do, don’t mention that thing with hands.”  
  


…

  
  
Larax Antilless was delighted.  
  
“What does he look like?” She was almost dancing across the lobby of Hotel Iasonné. “Come on, spit it out!”  
  
Maris sighed. “Kind of tall, well-dressed, vaguely handsome, he didn’t interrupt me a single time. I still don’t know how and why I accepted this date.”  
  
Larax clapped her hands, much to her husband’s horror. “And who cares? I told you before, but kissing some random nerf-herder at the Seven Rivers Beach does not count as ‘being in a committed relationship’…not in my book!”  
  
“Aunt Larax! Elesandre and I have been together since my last year at Lyceum!”  
  
“Yes, much to everybody’s chagrin.” The perky garbdesigner rolled her eyes and then noticed the worried expression on her husband’s face. “Denaro, relax. Or I am going to make a list of all the men I had before you.” She looked at Maris’ confused face. “Whaaat? A girl needs to listen to more than one holorecords in order to know what kind of music she likes.”  
  
“I am still against cheating.” Denaro crossed his arms. “But at the same time, maybe you’re right. Maybe. This man, Taide, he seems to be a much better fit for Maris than Elesandre Vorr could ever be. Polite, studious and not somebody who gets in trouble…which is already a huge deal.”  
  
Maris thought a bit and then finally said something.  
  
“That was my exact reasoning, actually. Elesandre might look like a Jedi film star…”  
  
“Do not use that word!” Denaro put his hand over her face. “Somebody could hear us and tell an ISB agent!”  
  
“…sorry, Uncle Denaro. He might look like an action holo star, but what is that in comparison to Taide’s being reliable and so…so scholarly!” She tried not to smile, but her aunt was quick to notice it.  
  
“Love at first sight!” Larax said through giggles. “This was not the case with Elesandre, either. He has been stalking you for how many years, again?”  
  
“He claims it was three.” Maris shrugged.  
  
Denaro scratched his chin and stretched in his lounge chair. “Well, I have been convinced. Go for it, Mar. We only want the best possible future for you and, if such future could bring Yola, Geo and you to Vagran, it’s a plus!”


	3. III

Taide wore the same suit that he did every day. Usually, he felt a bit hot in it, due to Anaslinea-Hoc’s climate and closeness to Vagran’s equator, but this time he was getting the chills. His hands were shaking.  
  
“Some women are like that once every month.” Vero adjusted the tablecloth for what must have been the thirty-seventh time that evening, much to Slad’s confusion. “Speaking of women, here she comes! Wearing that awful colour, again.”  
  
Indeed, Maris was coming up the street from the pier, wearing orange. She realised that Taide and his two friends were somewhat confused by her attire. After a short “prog”, the word they were still not able to even figure out, she went on to explain.  
  
“This is the same dress I will perform in, on the last night of the festival.”  
  
Taide didn’t know anything about dresses. Vero and Sladok did, but they just nodded, the latter letting a soft “m-hm” escape his mouth.  
  
The waitress attempted a careful question, “Why is it orange?”  
  
“That’s my class colour at the university. Second best. Red is the highest class, white the lowest. There are also yellows.” She paused. “You don’t have that on Vagran, do you? Why? It’s very practical. It helps filter out the weeds from the golden grains.”  
  
Taide was flabbergasted. “But…everybody is a star, in a way! In this Universe as it is, there’s place for everybody. Every brother is a star and every sister is a star!”  
  
“I guess.” Maris sat down at the table. “That must be why I was selected to perform. I never sang live before.”  
  
Sladok climbed the stairs to the restaurant and soon he was back, carrying two large plates full of various delicacies.  
  
“These are fried doio squid rings with red nebula onion and ryoo vinaigrette. This here, it’s okufleesi suckling roast on small sticks, straight from the spit. Then you have the local bantha yoghurt covered in swampgrape flower honey, with ground apex tree fruit kernels and real sugar syrup, not carbosyrup here. And…” He pointed to two nearby wraps and a large dish in a rounded pan. “No traditional Vagranite supper would be complete without the chicken and nerf mixed meat with pomatoes and the kakariki sauce wrapped in a flatcake…and…and...”  
  
“Young bantha cheese pie!” Taide clapped his hands, gleam in his eyes, as if he had said the most beautiful thing in the Universe. “My mother, Kantaree, makes the best cheese pie ever...after Slad’s, naturally.”  
  
Maris smiled politely and took a bite of everything. It was delicious.  
  
“I liked the dessert most. What is it called?”  
  
“Sweet as honey, white as fresh bantha yoghurt, tough as apex tree fruits. We call it doria.”  
  
“What does that have to do with, well, anything?”  
  
“It does not.” Sladok grinned. “It’s a traditional name that this stud here“ – he pointed to a blushing Taide – “managed to decipher together with the rest of the recipe. What’s wrong?” He noticed that Maris was confused, again.  
  
“Doloria is a Selonian terrorist organisation back in the Sacorrian system. They’re basically an assassin cult. Secular, but a cult. It’s…hard to explain.”  
  
“We definitely didn’t want to evoke memories of them.” Vero did her best to fix the situation. “In fact, we have other guests to serve over there, so we will leave you alone to your meal. Right, Slad?”  
  
The restaurant owner grinned again, showing a mouthful of blindingly white teeth. “Right, Vero.”  
  
Taide swallowed a lump. He had to talk to a girl without two of his friends around. And he’d had no courage to invite Lidgrain to join them and talk about his art. He couldn’t exactly confess to Groyo Stagger that he had never been on an actual dinner date before. His mother suspected that he was up to something before he went out – the last time he was this happy was when he had found the first petrified hand at the excavation site. But still, he didn’t manage to tell anybody other than the two common people who somewhat understood him.  
  
“So, Maris…” he began. “You like…stuff?”  
  
The Sacorrian stopped with her fork in her hand, just when she was about to take another bite of the pie. “What stuff?”  
  
“You know…things. And all that...poodoo!” Taide put both of his hands on his mouth. “I totally didn’t mean to use that word, I’m sorry!”  
  
Maris laughed.  
  
“How old are you, once again?”  
  
“Twenty-nine!” he said, as if this was some sort of an embarrassing thing to confess.  
  
“Well, I’m twenty-three and I don’t think you should be apologising for this kind of a word. And I don’t like many things except for history, culture and art. I used to have friends, but El…I mean, now with my studies, I don’t have much time to hang around. Plus, hanging around is not progressive. You?” She smiled.  
  
“I…make…things. You know, like these tiny ancient starships…in real glass bottles that my father brings me straight from Aurea! But that’s stupid. As far as f-f-friends go, there are Sladok and Vero. There’s Groyo, you already met him. Then, there’s the Caraway-Kaeni family. They actually founded this town. I mean, Ravyd Caraway did! At this point, his two youngest grand-grandsons, Proto and Klato own hotels, the Taliore and the Taliore Deluxe.”  
  
Maris looked at the slightly tanned face and gleaming hazel eyes. Elesandre’s were chocolate brown. Taide was also taller than he, which added a certain value to his natural awkwardness and clumsiness. He was most certainly a handsome man, but just like her first boyfriend back at the Lyceum, Frangoo Chato, he should have come with a manual. How did the story about his hobbies turn into one about those two beat-up hotels at the very end of the waterfront?  
  
“But what do you like most?” she asked. “Other than your family, friends and your job. Do you have any progressive goals?”  
  
Taide swallowed a lump again. “This is where I have to ask, forgive me, please…but why do you use that word all the time?”  
  
“You don’t know?” Maris was genuinely surprised. “Didn’t you study our culture?”  
  
“There is nothing about your culture available to us. You’re one large mystery. In fact, I have only briefly met Sacorrian beings before. I’m aware of the actor Garko Garelbi who recently defected to Coruscant, but that’s it.”  
  
“There is a lot to us. We get the rules and we follow them. At the first day of basic school, we’re explicitly told where our place in the world is and how far we can go. It’s an admirable society.”  
  
“That sounds slightly disturbing. Every being is a star, it’s just that some don’t know that they are.”  
  
“No,” Maris said flatly. “It’s a good thing, because it’s not progressive to waste time on useless beings. The founder of the First Triad, Taranya of R’vanye, said so herself. Roofus and Dorthus Tal agreed and that is how our progressive society began!”  
  
Taide’s curiosity was piqued. “Oh, the Sacorrian Triad! Who are they, exactly?” He took a small helping of the doria dessert.  
  
“We don’t know. There have been at least one hundred thousand incarnations of them over the course of the last thirty millennia, ever since the first sleeper ships came from Corellia.”  
  
He expected her to have some interest in knowing who these beings were. But no.  
  
“Maris, have you ever wondered who they are right now?”  
  
“No. It’s not like it’s public domain. They have been keeping it a secret forever, so why tell us now?”  
  
“Is it because it could…break your society the way it is?”  
  
The Sacorrian woman raised her voice. “How dare you say that, Comrade Lambrin? Our society is perfect and progressive!”  
  
Suddenly, they were on a last-name basis again, or so it seemed. Taide wasn’t sure what to do. He took one of Maris’ small, white hands in his hand.  
  
“Maris, please don’t be angry. I was just curious, being an archaeology doctoral candidate and a doctor of sentientology.”  
  
Her expression changed and now she was blushing, too. “It’s all right, Taide. I get carried away, too. By the way, has anybody told you that you have a certain charm amidst that confusion of yours?”  
  
“N-no, nobody’s ever told me anything like that!” Taide did not want to remember the time he almost took that droid home back at his University of Vagran days. “Not at all.”  
  
Maris came closer. Was this going to be what he never cared or dreamed about until she came along? Also, was this the time when he was supposed to return the compliment?  
  
“You have really nice…” He could hear Vero and Sladok telling him what not to say, but their words turned to plain ‘blah blah blah blah’ in his mind. “Hands.” Maris yanked her hand away. “I… I honestly meant to say ‘eyes’.”  
  
The woman got up, almost bringing the whole tablecloth down.  
  
“You necrophile!” she yelled. “Is that the only reason you wanted to kiss me? So you could ask me to be one of those hand models? Well, Comrade, I have news for you – death is not progressive and I am not going to be anybody’s relics. I am a real woman, of flesh and blood. AND I AM TAKEN!”  
  
“Maris, wait! I…I really like you!” Taide said out loud, causing everybody present at the other tables to turn to him. Then he swallowed a lump.  
  
But it was too late. The girl of his dreams was gone, pacing downwards to the Anaslinea-Hoc waterfront.

  
  
…

  
  
Lidgrain, whose real name was Dyeke, whose real fur colour was tan and who was indeed Sacorrian himself, unbeknownst to all of his Vagranite friends, surveyed the crowd on the last night of the festival.  
  
Once at home, he recorded the following audio message to his long lost love, one certain Branna, Maris’ neighbour back in Saccorata.  
  
_On the last day, a troupe from Sacorria performed before the closing ceremony. They were a late addition to the programme. The crowd was extremely curious about them._  
  
_At first, the stage was almost completely dark, with only a light orange circle, likely representing Sacor, shown in the centre of the back wall. After a one-minute intro that sounded a lot of like ramship parade music, a pale, red-haired, blue-eyed young woman wearing orange walked towards us. Her corpse-like appearance must have been Taide’s favourite thing about this festival, but I couldn’t spot him in the crowd. I gave up on looking for him. Imagining his facial expression was enough._  
  
_It was only then that I realised this girl was the young comradette Maris Inesedam! They didn’t even introduce the members of the troupe, I guess it was not progressive to single anybody out and imply individuality, not even taken into consideration that they were in another star system, but it was absolutely her. She sung Fields of Golden Grains and then she sat on the ground and a group of five Drall, five Selonian and five Human children, all wearing costumes in the four school colours back at home…this really, really bothered me, Ranni…danced around her, to the tune so boring that it must have been composed by Whatevername Lylek._  
  
_There was a moment when I could swear Maris looked straight into my eyes. I put my glareshades on. I guess I was the victim of that stupid belief that the performers are looking at me, me, me and not somebody else, but I wanted to be safe. Turns out this was a good decision, as the unenthusiastic applause the performance received was enough to bring the author of the whole thing onstage._  
  
_It was Saride, the kriffin’ art thief! He said that the choreography was done by Lyneina Lylek – I guessed that, Ranni – but that she had prior commitments with the folkdance entrance exams at the SUPAS, so he filled in for her. He could have as well said that he wanted a free trip to another star system, right? He praised his troupe and said that he’s satisfied by the intensity of the applause, because they needed to remain humble?!_  
  
_I almost wanted to throw something at him. Was he even aware that the applause was the way it was because the performance sucked bantha poodoo? Because Lyneina Lylek likely lacks any kind of an art talent, just like most other Lyleks?_  
  
_We’re such unimaginative people. I am not even sure if that’s Saride’s fault or not. Or the Lyleks’._  
  
And then he sighed. He wished he could have talked to Maris. He was worried about Taide. At the same time, he wished Taide would have seen his long-lost and much younger friend. They were, more or less, perfect for each other.  
  


…

  
After the return trip to Sacorria, before she could even manage to take a rest and talk to her mother and Branna the Drall about what had happened on Vagran, Maris found herself sitting at the Orbit Bar at the Central Spaceport with her boyfriend, Elesandre Vorr, and his older sister, Iris.  
  
“So, how was Vagran, Maz?” he asked her. He had been calling her “Maz” since the first time he had seen her and many of his friends didn’t even know that Maris had been her actual name.  
  
“Boring,” she said in her usual flat tone and stirred her transparisteel mug of Corfai-caf with a long spoon. “Other than the usual visit from Larax and Denaro, nothing really happened.” She quickly drank everything in the mug. “I prefer it here, anyway.”  
  
“Tell me something I don’t know, Maz,” Iris said and took the mug in her hands. Seconds later, she bit her tongue and turned around, making sure that her brother could not see her face. The remains of the caf on the bottom of the mug looked like a tall man holding a quadduck toy.  
  
And there was one, peeking from Maz’s handbag.  
  


**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> [Skystrike Academy](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Skystrike_Academy) is canon.  
>   
>  Tanpalso trees are fanon, a species that would resemble Earth's plane tree (Platanus acerifolia).  
>   
> The Eve of the Festival of Wine and Dance is described from a different perspective in [Entry 40](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/ddc-2016-letters-never-sent-ocs-rots-e-book-available-complete.50037130/page-7#post-53856404) of Letters Never Sent.  
>   
> The narrator of Letters Never Sent makes a cynical comment about Taide and Maris, not knowing that they had seen each other in [Entry 39](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/ddc-2016-letters-never-sent-ocs-rots-e-book-available-complete.50037130/page-7#post-53839949).  
>   
> Characters Groyo Stager and Sorimana Aedemii previously appeared in Letters Never Sent, too.  
>   
> GR series droids look like mechanical Selonians and they appear throughout my stories as well.  
>   
> [Mammon Hoole](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mammon_Hoole) is an established character.  
>   
> The [Tho-Yor Arrival](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tho_Yor_Arrival) is dealt with in the [Dawn of the Jedi comics](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Dawn_of_the_Jedi) and [book](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dawn_of_the_Jedi:_Into_the_Void).  
>   
> Lazari Polverò is an in-universe scholar who was the head of the Archaeological Museum of Anaslinea-Hoc before Taide Lambrin.  
>   
> Sladok Kusetzi and Ordinus are new characters.


End file.
